Automated gears for motor vehicles are already known. Such automated gears have an electronic control unit or an electronic control to control gear change processes. As a rule, this electronic control unit or this electronic control is in a signal connection with one or several actors. Such actors as a rule in each case have an electric motor. Furthermore, the actors can be hydraulic or pneumatic switching cylinders that are impacted with pressure by a pressure supply unit by means of a corresponding circuit arrangement of valves. The electronic control unit or the electronic control will then trigger these actors in that, for example, the electric motors or the power supply of such electric motors or valves and their pressure supply devices will be impacted with the corresponding control signals. These actors can then be used to engage and disengage gears. It is furthermore known that clutches, such as starter clutches or the like, can be triggered electronically especially by means of electrical, hydraulic, or hydrostatic actors, specifically, also in the context of the engagement and disengagement of gears and/or for interrupting or locking the power train of the motor vehicle or of segments or branches of the power train.
It is furthermore known that, in motor vehicle gear devices, and especially, in automated gears, one can precisely design a power train branch as, for example, in an automated gear shift (ASG) or several, especially two parallel connected power train branches, such as, for example, in a dual clutch gear (DKG) or a parallel gear box (PSG) or automatic gear box that can be engaged or disengaged under load (uninterruptible gear box; USG) or in an automated gear box supported by an electrical machine (ESG).
Applicant—at least in-house—furthermore knows that, to improve driving comfort in the case of automated gears, depending on practical application, in several or all gears, the drive train is opened by the clutch or by the clutches, the moment the driver turns on traction operation, for instance, by reducing the driver pedal position or when driving downhill, in order to prevent the motor or the combustion engine from being driven by the movement of the vehicle. Consequently, the engine rpm will drop, while the input shaft rpm will follow the speed that will be set while the vehicle rolls. This functional mode is referred to as free wheels or neutral idle.
In current uses—which are known to the applicant at least on an in-house basis—the gear selection during free wheels or neutral idle is not changed; in other words, a target gear is always engaged which will ensure an input shaft rpm that will be definitely above the idling rpm (for a diesel engine, this would be typically 2,000+/−500 rpm). If the free wheels or neutral idle is to be left in the direction of traction operation, because the driver increases the load lifting position, then one can engage only after the engine rpm has risen above the input shaft rpm; otherwise, even though the driver would like to accelerate, it would, for a short time, first of all switch to thrust operation, in other words, the vehicle would be briefly decelerated.
Until the engine rpm has risen above the input shaft rpm, no moment is transmitted in the procedure just described, in other words, the vehicle is not accelerated either. The delay between the acceleration requirement for the actual onset of acceleration is felt to be a disturbing factor, especially in turbo-diesel engines whose rpm, on account of the special engine characteristic (“turbo gap”), even when the drive train is engaged, will react only relatively sluggishly to this increase in the driver pedal position. That makes the vehicle appear very inert. In known gear software for parallel gear boxes—known to the applicant at least on an in-house basis—both clutches are (almost) kept engaged in case of a requirement for acceleration during idling, until the engine rpm has risen above the rpm of the gear input shaft with the target gear engaged. Thereafter, for reasons of comfort, the clutch that belongs to the target gear is slowly closed and at the same time a negative engine moment engagement is performed in order to avoid any greater engine rpm overshoots. The complete engine moment, required by the driver, is available for the acceleration of the vehicle only definitely (typically about 1.5 seconds) after the pedal value has been increased.